Snooping at the Teacher’s Desk

16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, November 17, 1911:Another girl and I made our teacher feel cross for awhile this afternoon. He had drawn a picture of a ring and beneath it we wrote “my diamond.” Now he gives some of us credit for snooping at everything he has on his desk.

Did the paper look like this?

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

This is one of my favorite diary entries. Grandma must have been a hoot when she was young.

This entry also makes me wish that I knew more about her teacher. I know that the teacher’s name was Howard Northrop—but little else. In most diary entries he seems like the stereotypical teacher—gives hard tests, puts Grandma on the spot sometimes when she isn’t paying attention, etc.

In this post her teacher seems really human—How old was he? Was he cute? Did he have a girlfriend? Was he thinking of asking her to marry him? If so, how did it all work out?